Sharing Child Care Responsibilities Could Improve Your Sex Life

It’s normal for the sex life of a couple caring for children to take a nosedive because of the weight of responsibility, but according to a new study heterosexual couples who share child care responsibilities evenly experience a better overall relationship and an increase in their sex lives.

A group of sociologists from Georgia State University examined data from a 2006 Marital Relationship study that compiled the opinion of 487 heterosexual couples that were broken up into three groups. One group consisted of women who did all the work in the relationship, another consisted of men who did all the work and the last consisted of both partners who share childcare responsibilities evenly.

Researchers examined how often couples had sex and how they felt about it and assessed relationship quality by reporting relationship satisfaction and conflict. The lowest quality relationship and sex life was in the group where women held most of the responsibility of child care responsibilities (at least 60%). In groups where the men held most of the child care responsibilities, relationship quality, sexual frequency and satisfaction with sexual frequency were as high as couples who shared childcare responsibilities. Even though the women in these relationships reported overall relationship satisfaction, the men in the relationships reported lowest overall satisfaction with their sex lives.